Eagles Showed the 49ers the Meaning of Being Physical
PHILADELPHIA – After all the angst over Jalen Hurts’ injured right shoulder and the 0-2 record the Eagles had when their MVP candidate quarterback was forced to sit and heal, it turns out they didn’t really need him that much.
Once again, the Eagles elected to run the ball on Sunday, and when the Eagles run the ball, they do it in a punishing fashion.
They did it against the New York Giants in the divisional round and they did it again in the NFC Championship Game to maul the San Francisco 49ers, 31-7, to make it Super Bowl LVII in two weeks in Arizona.
The running game ground out 268 yards to beat the Giants.
On Sunday, they piled up 148 against the 49ers, who, oh, by the way, were the second-best team in the league against the run this season.
All week, the Eagles heard how physical the 49ers were. Teams who played them were 0-15 the following week, presumably because San Fran laid a physical beating on them.
They weren’t anything special from a physical standpoint on Sunday.
“It was just a regular football game,” said Kenny Gainwell. “They weren’t physical. We were physical. We took our physicality that we’ve been playing with all year to those guys. They sat back and they lost it.”
Gainwell was the team’s leading rusher in both playoff wins.
He had a career-high 112 on 12 carries against the Giants and put up 48 on 14 runs to go along with two receptions for 26 yards.
He even gave himself a new nickname – “playoff, Kenny.”
Gainwell didn’t have any of the four rushing touchdowns the Eagles put up on this vaunted 49ers defense, but Miles Sanders had two, starting the scoring with a 6-yard burst on the opening possession, and added a 13-yard scamper to give Philly the lead for good at 14-7 with 1:36 to play in the second quarter.
He was untouched on both of them.
A physical defense doesn’t let that happen.
Asked if he thought the 49ers lived up to their hype as a physical team, Sanders didn’t want to speak badly of them, but said, “You saw it, what do you think?”
Boston Scott added a 10-yard run that made it 21-7 at halftime.
The 49ers were toast from there after the Eagles sent both their quarterbacks – Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson – to the blue medical tent during the game.
That’s physicality.
The 49ers resorted to ugly chippiness, frustrated that they were being manhandled.
Safety Talanoa Hufanga pushed Hurts well out of bounds to earn an unnecessary roughness penalty that moved the Eagles to first-and-goal at the 3. Hurts had the last laugh and scored on a 1-yard run that all but iced the game at 28-7 with 43 seconds left in the third quarter.
Then left tackle Trent Williams body-slammed Eagles safety K’Von Wallace with 4:13 to play in the game. Both players were ejected after Wallace came up swinging.
Hurts is a big part of the running game, no doubt. He opens lanes for the running back that other quarterbacks simply can’t do, but even in the running game these past two weeks, he didn’t have to dip, dart, and dodge his way to some crazy rushing numbers.
He had 39 yards in this one and 34 against the Giants.
Hurts didn’t need to beat either team with his arm, either.
Though he made enough plays to keep defenses honest, like the 40-yard throw to DeVonta Smith against New York and the 29-yard toss to Smith on fourth-and-three that put the Eagles at the 6-yard line, he has only attempted 49 passes in the two wins.
He has thrown for just 275 yards combined in the two playoff wins after completing 15-of-25 throws for 121 against San Francisco.
It hasn’t matter, not the way the Eagles have ramped up their run game.
“All I know is, and this is a fact, (Hurts) is about to get PAAAAIIIIIDDDDD!” said LT Jordan Mailata. “Oh my God, pay the man. Second year as a full-year starter, and he’s taking us to the Super Bowl.
“I don’t know how many records he set. All I know is, man, that man is probably one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
